R projects and file management

Overview

Having a solid R workflow is incredibly important for efficient and reproducible data analysis. It involves key practices like using R projects, leveraging the {here} package, and restarting the R session regularly. R projects provide a structured and isolated environment, ensuring project-specific settings and fostering collaboration. The {here} package simplifies file path management, boosting code portability across different systems, and saving you from the headaches of dealing with setwd(). Additionally, restarting the R session helps eliminate potential issues and ensures a clean workspace, reducing errors and allowing you to start fresh with your code execution.

Slides

Open the slides in a new tab here.

Exercises

  1. Create an R project for this workshop (you do want to check off “Use renv” – we’ll get to that later)
  2. Install the {here} package
  3. Download the .csv file at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/louisahsmith/reproducible-epi-workshop-2023/main/data/nlsy.csv
  4. Create a data folder within your R project directory and move the nlsy.csv file there.
  5. Run here::here("data", "nlsy.csv") and see what file path prints out. Compare with your neighbor.
  6. Run read.csv(here::here("data", "nlsy.csv")) to make sure your can read in the file.
  7. Restart the R session to start fresh!

Resources